Aijalon Mahli Gomes safely home from North Korea

Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Aijalon Mahli Gomes

Aijalon Mahli Gomes arrived home Friday afternoon with the man who secured his freedom, former President Jimmy Carter. Gomes, who has been living in South Korea for about nine years, will at last be home for Christmas.

Gomes' family rushed toward the steps of the private plane, wiping tears from their eyes and hugging the man imprisoned in communist North Korea since January.

The U.S. State Department and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed Gomes' release. Ban commended Carter and said he "appreciates the decision" of North Korea to release Gomes on "humanitarian considerations."

The Korean Central News Agency reported, "Jimmy Carter made an apology to Kim Yong Nam for American Gomes' illegal entry into [North Korea] and gave him the assurance that such case will never happen again."  

Gomes didn't have only Carter as an advocate. Florida-based attorney Michael Cavendish, who doesn't even know Gomes, started a letter-writing campaign when he learned about Gomes' sentencing in April. Some of his letters criticized the U.S. government, which he argued initially did not do enough to advocate for Gomes.

Aijalon Mahli Gomes soon a free man

Former President Jimmy Carter is leaving North Korea Friday with a U.S. citizen who was imprisoned in the communist country after entering it illegally in January, according to the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a Christian activist, was imprisoned in January of this year and later sentenced to eight years of hard labor with a fine of about $600,000 for the crime of illegal entry into North Korea.

Carter was greeted by Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea's chief negotiator at the six-party nuclear talks, and has also met the country's titular head of state, Kim Jong Nam, according to Seoul's Yonhap News agency, quoting North Korean media.

There have been hopes of some breakthrough in tense Pyongyang-Washington relations with Carter's visit. The two men who represent North and South Korea as their country's respective envoys in the currently stalled six-party talks met in Seoul.  These events come amid intense speculation surrounding North Korea's leadership, given that the state will be holding only its third-ever Workers Party Congress in September.